Saturday, July 19, 2008

First I heard several commentaries on press fallacies in reporting news in every day life.

There is lack of research and tactful analysis in India. In BS, TCA have written two important economic way of thinking article which is must read article to every citizen of this country.The problem that is the mediaThe economics of bad mediaBut in USA, at least some or other economists are pressing the press fallacies in news reporting. Do read here the Dr. Arthur B. Laffer written a paper.

There are two interesting news one was recently published by David Brooks in NYTNS. It is really excellence line:

“For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead, as Turkheimer writes in his chapter in the book, “Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics,” science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do.

The prospect may be gloomy for those who seek to understand human behavior, but the flip side is the reminder that each of us is a Luxurious Growth. Our lives are not determined by uniform processes. Instead, human behavior is complex, nonlinear and unpredictable. The Brave New World is far away. Novels and history can still produce insights into human behavior that science can’t match.

Just as important is the implication for politics. Starting in the late 19th century, eugenicists used primitive ideas about genetics to try to re-engineer the human race. In the 20th century, communists used primitive ideas about “scientific materialism” to try to re-engineer a New Soviet Man.

Today, we have access to our own genetic recipe. But we seem not to be falling into the arrogant temptation — to try to re-engineer society on the basis of what we think we know. Saying farewell to the sort of horrible social engineering projects that dominated the 20th century is a major example of human progress.

We can strive to eliminate that multivariate thing we call poverty. We can take people out of environments that (somehow) produce bad outcomes and try to immerse them into environments that (somehow) produce better ones. But we’re not close to understanding how A leads to B, and probably never will be.

This age of tremendous scientific achievement has underlined an ancient philosophic truth — that there are severe limits to what we know and can know; that the best political actions are incremental, respectful toward accumulated practice and more attuned to particular circumstances than universal laws”.

In the 1937 essay "Economics and Knowledge," Hayek formulated the "knowledge problem" this way: "How can the combination of fragments of knowledge existing in different minds bring about results which, if they were to be brought about deliberately, would require a knowledge on the part of the directing mind which no single person can possess?" Hayek's answer was that market institutions manage to gather the "fragments of knowledge" and coordinate individuals toward efficient outcomes. No one knows just what combination of production inputs will minimize costs and produce the quantity of goods that satisfies demand. But the operations of the market, in which prices are not fixed but respond to changes in supply and demand, are a "discovery procedure" (as Hayek would later put it) for such information.

……….as Hayek explained in the 1939 pamphlet "Freedom and the Economic System," "impose upon the people the detailed code of values that is lacking" — paving a path toward despotism.)

Both these two articles are nothing but the Professor F A Hayek ideas was well researched scientific theses, premised as individuals do things based on what they possess as knowledge no central planners can gather those idea from each. In fact Professor Hayek coined broadly these processes as spontaneous order which in the market allocate the resources efficiently than the Government.

Friday, July 18, 2008

One Liberal economist, based in India, New Delhi writes in livemint as a GUESTVIEW, it read “It is the economy, stupid!”, what does mean this, the people who live, lived, born and died in this country are the only, how it is bound be like that, but the author does says that, even not means. In other words, it is the people those who engaged in unrealistic bites with words in the economy.

When I read the article OURVIEW yesterday livemint news paper it sited quote from Nobel winning economist, it read “Nobel economist Douglass North has divided human societies into two categories. First, “limited access orders” which create orders by using the political system to limit economic participation, a process that creates excess profits (or what economists call rents). These rents are used to impose political stability and limit violence. Second, “open access orders” which maintain order by competition rather than rent seeking”.

Apparently, it shows that the coercion is the former system and the F A Hayek musings of spontaneous order is the later one where individuals are the orders and decision makers.

Luckily I have North book (Understanding the Process of Economic Change) in front of me, when I write this. When I saw this book first time in 2006 I come crossed two interesting lines in the book. They are as follow:

“Uncertainty has a long history in economic literature” p.13

“The development of well specified property rights, for example, will make the overall environment more predicable but will increase uncertainty for those who traditionally have used the land in question without having formal title. Hence an essential question we must ask is, who makes the rules and for whom and what are their objectives”. He went on to say “individuals are the decision makers”…. “and market has the lowest production and transition costs attainable” p.15.

This book is everyone must read book!In fact the 1st Chapter of the book is available in online go ahead and muse what change he premise.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Life is feasible for people when they have access of many choices in things which are essentials. A student written (UC Berkeley) his PhD theses in 88 pages only! that is too in Economics. It is shocking me I have never heard nor seen any such kind of theses in Indian universities. Indian universities produces theses minimum of 200 pages. Maximum it may goes to what the supervisor think note that not what the research area or topic reveal not even what the student muse on the topic. Tragedy tragedy!. Quality matters in research analysis.Recently I read a Indian economist CV, it was 74 page!

Check out here, though one can not simple understand the concept unless have expertise on the subject.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

There is several ways to transmit the idea among human beings but no other method evolved on this earth except involving people.

"A teacher is the architect of future generation and hence the future of India depends upon the teacher to a great extent".

This article pity focused from student’s point of view. It reminds me several occasions where I encountered such absurd teachers, professors in class rooms in my school and college days.

There is also another article (Awakening a slumbering elephant: CCS in India) by respected free market economist in India is Dr Parth J Shah, President of the liberal think tank ‘Centre for Civil Society’ . He tells four different type of targeting the future generation to transmit the idea.

It really awake me to open the eye to imagine how one could march towards self sufficient of knowledge in a particular field or in institution or in society etc amazing when I realize the actions of ideas around the world played by human beings.

He engages reader quite well! Do read 7th article published in a book by IEA, London.